H YMENOM YCE TES 



145 



Calocera usually growing on dead wood. Saccardo includes also 

 Zachnpdadium, which resembles a branched Clavaria, but the 

 substance is coriaceous, and the stem 

 tomentose. For these and other 

 reasons we prefer to place it in 

 ThelepJwreae. In Fterula the sub- 

 stance is dry and cartilaginous, but 

 in form resembling very slender 

 Clavariae. Typhula and Pistillaria 

 include minute species, mostly waxy 

 and delicate, in the former with a 

 very long, and in the latter a very 

 short stem. Physalacria is Pistillaria 

 with a subglobose, vesicular head or 

 capitulum. Most of the species in 

 this group are white, whitish, or 

 brightly coloured, and but few of 

 them attain any considerable size. 

 The spores are simple, small, and 

 either uncoloured or yellowisb. 



The sixth, and last, family is the 

 TrcmcUincac, in which the dis- 

 tinguishing feature is the tremelloid 

 substance, collapsing when dry and ''^ ■ 

 reviving with moisture, combined with fig. 

 a peripherical, somewhat peculiar, 



basidiosporous fructification. The basidia are not super- 

 ficial, but immersed, and either undivided or forked at 

 the apex, or globulose and cruciately divided. The spores 

 are typically reniform or globose and continuous, and these 

 on germination give rise to sporidiola. The structure of 

 this family was investigated at first by Tulasne, but more 

 recently by Brefeld, and the classification now adopted 

 is based chiefly upon the records of the latter. In this 

 manner three subfamilies have been recognised — viz. the 

 Auricularieac, in which the basidia are elongated or fusoid, 

 and transversely many-celled ; the Tremcllincae, in which the 

 basidia are globose, or nearly so, and when mature divided, 

 in a cruciate manner ; and the Dacnjomyccteac, with the basidia 



10 



J9. — Clavaria jnstillaris. 



